Squatters into Citizens: The 1961 Bukit Ho Swee Fire and the Making of Modern Singapore

Contents

vii Contents List of Maps xi List of Illustrations xiii List of Abbreviations xvii Acknowledgements xix Preface xxi Chapter 1 Fire: A Catalyst for Modern Singapore 1 Crisis and Planning in the Metropole 5 An Alternative Modernity on the Margin 10 The Singapore Exception in Southeast Asia 13 Fire as Catalyst 17 Overview of Remaining Chapters 24 Chapter 2 Hopeful Migrants in the Urban Kampongs 26 Between Staying and Moving 29 Exodus from “Pigeon Cages” and Direct Arrivals 34 The Character of a Mobile Community 44 Chapter 3 A “Black Area” 47 First Act of Fire, 1934 48 Post-war: “Finding a Road” 50 Living with Pigs and the Dead 59 Gangsters and Kampong Children 65 Chapter 4 “A Roar from the Oppressed People” 73 Representation and Surveillance 74 Prosecution and Demolition 79 Clearance and Resettlement 81 Planning and Zoning 84 Politics and Mobilisation 87 Bukit Ho Swee and Hong Lim Pa Sat 94 Chapter 5 Fires and Experiments with Emergency Housing 98 Geography of Risk, Culture of Fire 99 Voluntary Firefighting Squads 104 Million-Dollar Inferno at Kampong Bugis 106 “14-Day Wonder” at Geylang Lorong 3 108 Degenerating into Slums: Emergency Housing at Geylang Lorong 25 110 Fire and State Inaction at Kampong Tiong Bahru 112 Emergency Housing for Sale at Kampong Koo Chye 114 “The Opportunity to Clean up the Area Must Not Be Lost”: Kampong Tiong Bahru, 1959 118 Chapter 6 The Inferno 127 174-A Kampong Tiong Bahru, About 2.50 p.m. 127 Beo Lane, from 3.30 p.m. 132 Or Kio Tau, from Roughly 4.30 p.m. 140 Delta Estate, About 5.30 p.m. 147 Arc of Destruction 148 Chapter 7 State of Emergency 154 Fire Site under Guard 154 A Maelstrom of Activity at the Relief Centre 157 Operation Shift 168 The Great Singapore Fire Debate 172 The Anger and Rumours 175 Chapter 8 Nine Months 182 War on Familiar Ogres and Unauthorised Housing 182 Managers and Architects to Break Eggs and Make Omelettes 186 “A God-sent Opportunity” to Build Bukit Ho Swee Estate 189 The End of the Emergency Housing Experiment 198 The Planned New City 202 Chapter 9 Bukit Ho Swee Estate 212 Renewing the Estate 212 Becoming Good and Loyal Citizens 220 Pain and Bitterness: Work and Resignation to Poverty 224 The Estate beyond the Law 230 Gangs and Socially Detached Youths 235 viii Contents Chapter 10 Memory, Myth and Identity 243 Like a Rising Phoenix: The Official Mythology 244 Romancing the Kampong 252 “Wild Talk” and Undying Rumours 256 Conclusion Fire, Emergency and High Modernism 262 Cultures of Modernity Past and Present 270 Glossary 276 Bibliography 281 About the Author 303 Index 304 Contents ix ...